It left this Saturday from Stoke Mandeville, the English birthplace of Paralympic sport. This Sunday, it arrives in Calais, after crossing the Channel Tunnel and will once again light up France. After the long journey of the Olympic flame, it is the turn of the Paralympic flame to set off to meet the French. And this time, there will not be just one torch, but twelve. They will all leave from a corner of France, to reach Paris after a three-day relay.
The number “12” was not chosen at random. It symbolizes the 12 days that are on the program of these first Summer Paralympic Games in France. These Games will indeed begin this Wednesday, August 28, with the opening ceremony and the lighting of the cauldron, before the competitions begin the next day, and end on Sunday, September 8.
From Strasbourg, Antibes, Lourdes or Lorient
This Monday, the twelve flames will set off for their first day. Each will have its own route, but all will have the same direction: Paris. They will leave, for example, from Calais, Strasbourg, Antibes, Lourdes, Lorient or Rouen. In total, 1,000 torchbearers, called “scouts”, will carry the Paralympic flame to around fifty cities.
Like the Olympic flame, which began its journey in Olympia, the Paralympic flame was not lit in France. Traditionally, it is lit in Stoke Mandeville, Great Britain. It was in this city, and more precisely in its hospital, that the German neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a competition for veterans of the Second World War in 1948.
